H&S Scene;

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Elizabeth Sayad
A Woman o f Achievement
Scene
~~^A woman of achieve-
/ ^ ^ k ment. Those arc the
r—^^L words that best
IA J H ^ describe Elizabeth
Sayad, wife of St. Louis senior
partner Homer Sayad. In recogni­tion
of her many contributions to
arts and education in Missouri
over the years, the St Louis Globe-
Democrat named Elizabeth that
city's Woman of Achievement in
Civic Responsibility for 1976. The
award, presented last January,
was one often the newspaper gave
to women for service in such
diverse fields as medicine, child
care and social welfare.
An accomplished pianist,
Elizabeth has devoted much of her
time to furthering the arts,
particularly music, in her com­munity
In 1959 she helped found
the New Music Circle, a group
that provides a forum for the pre­sentation
and discussion of con­temporary
music. She serves on
the boards of the Opera Theater
and the Mississippi River Festival,
and was a founder of the Missouri
State Arts Council.
Because of her concern for the
quality of education in St. Louis,
Elizabeth headed a fund-raising
campaign to establish the New
City School, an elementary school
where students are encouraged
to work at their own pace rather
than being placed in a particular
grade simply because of age.
Regular visits by the children to
museums, police stations, news­papers
and hospitals give them
opportunities to relate educa­tional
experiences to everyday life.
"Self-motivation is the most im­portant
thing being taught at the
school," Elizabeth says. "Students
learn because they want to, not
merely because a teacher is telling
them that they must"
10
The latest and most outstand­ing
of Elizabeth's achievements
was her organization of BHAM (Bi­centennial
Horizons in American
Music and the Performing Arts),
an arts festival that lasted three
weeks and brought thousands of
people to St. Louis during the bi­centennial
year "I began planning
for BHAM in December 1973,"
Elizabeth recalls, "I knew other
cities were arranging bicentennial
activities that involved historical
reenactments and restorations,
and I thought that an arts festival
would be a unique way for St.
Louis to pay tribute to America's
rich cultural heritage, which, of
course, goes back much further
than 1776."
In order to put her idea for an
arts festival into action, Elizabeth
enlisted the aid of several prom­inent
people in St. Louis, begin­ning
with Mayor John H. Poelker
According to her, "having the
mayor put his name on a declara­tion
of support for the project
helped get BHAM off the ground.
Another key figure whose assist­ance
ensured the program's suc­cess
was Congressman James W.
Symington, who introduced me to
several influential leaders of the
Washington cultural community"
With Congressman Symington's
help, Elizabeth was able to get
financial support for BHAM from
two federal agencies, the National
Endowment for the Arts and the
National Park Service. "Having
federal backing," Elizabeth pointed
out, "made things a lot easier
when the time came for soliciting
funds in the community But
Washington's aid aside, I think the
key to BHAM's success was that
it was a truly grassroots effort
More than 1,500 volunteers, or­ganized
into twenty-eight com­mittees,
worked on the project,
and 90 percent of the 01,250,000
we spent on the festival was
raised right here in the St. Louis
area." In addition to individual sup­port,
a number of local organiza­tions,
such as the Daughters of